What’s the feeblest amp you’ve got away with at a gig?

fretfinder

We were playing a gig in the Red Lion in Brentwood nearly 30 years ago, before it became a drive-in Macdonalds, when my valve amp blew a fuse and I didn’t have a replacement fuse in the gigbag. There were two other bands on the bill but their guitarists wouldn’t let me use their amps, despite them being on stage and ready to go - so much for the camaraderie of musicians. All I had as a spare was a Ross Fame 10 tranny practice amp with 8” speaker. So the soundman miced it up and surprisingly it didn’t sound half bad, particularly in ‘Tubeblaster’ mode! And apart from the short delay to set it up, I don’t think many in the audience noticed any difference. 

So what tiny amps have you used at a gig and got away with? 

John_P

I was doing the sound at a gig a few weeks back and the guitarists ac30 died - he had the baby vox john deacon amp in the car so used that and I fed the guitar into the monitors.   It sounded okish but looked hilarious on stage sat in a chair.  

ICBM

'59 Fender 5F1 Champ. Not mic'ed for small bar gigs, just put up on a stool. At one gig in a piano bar I was told to turn it down .

Less successfully I did also try playing an 'acoustic' gig with a ZVex Nano (0.5W) through an extremely efficient cab, and it was totally inaudible even in a very quiet bar, although it had sounded quite loud at home - apparently it was OK out front through the PA, but I couldn't hear it at all.

Stevepage

Roland VGA3 at The archway tavern about 15 years ago. Sounded terrible but I couldn't use my half stack that day.

Henrytwang

I’m really old and remember playing gigs with both rhythm and lead guitars plugged into a V shaped 18 watt Watkins Dominator, the lead player went through a Watkins Copikat which gave him a bit more boost.

PhilKing

Hotone Purple Wind with a 2x8 cab.  The sound engineer asked me to turn it down.  A friend of mine used to gig with a 2 watt East Studio 2 amp & 2x12 in NYC.  He used Eminence Wizard speakers, which have about 103db efficiency and could keep up with a drummer. 

darthed1981

Seriously, interesting (to me) almost follow on/expansion question...

How big a venue would it need to be before you couldn't fill it with a Boss Katana 50, playing relatively clean for example?

The average pub could be filled with a pretty basic back-up amp no?

p90fool

darthed1981 said:

Seriously, interesting (to me) almost follow on/expansion question...

How big a venue would it need to be before you couldn't fill it with a Boss Katana 50, playing relatively clean for example?

The average pub could be filled with a pretty basic back-up amp no?

We played a large-ish hall last night with a reasonable crowd of dancers, and all our gear basically ticking over. 

We're playing in a tiny pub tonight where where we have a good following of crazy drunk girls and I'll need to push everything to the limit, because the room is packed with bodies. 

Room size is a factor, but the ambient noise of the audience is a much bigger deal.

At tonight's gig we'll be shouting at each other over the backgound noise - while we're setting up.

darthed1981

Ahh, very interesting point, makes sense.

So would you trust say a 15w valve amp to always do a small venue, or do you need to always have something bigger?

p90fool

darthed1981 said:

Ahh, very interesting point, makes sense.

So would you trust say a 15w valve amp to always do a small venue, or do you need to always have something bigger?

I need clean headroom, so definitely not in my case, though I gigged a 15w Pro Jr for a few years in a rock band with no problems. 

It's often dependent on monitoring tbh, I've played to thousands with a 20w Marshall transistor amp, but with a vocal-only PA headroom is everything. 

viz

100w

Grumpyrocker

Spider III 75W playing in a covers band at a wedding. Went surprisingly well.

Ossyrocks

My Gartone 5E3 does a great job at small gigs.

Many years ago I was in a band with another guitarist and he had a Peavey 2x12 combo, I think it was a Stereo Chorus something, all solid state. I thought it sounded terrible, but he was having none of it. So one night, I set up my Boogie as usual, but behind it I hid a Marshall MS2, a tiny battery powered thing, and stuck an SM57 on it. After the first set, he came over to say that my sound was great tonight. I pointed to the tiny battery amp and told him what I had done. He agreed it sounded better than his amp, and promptly sold it and bought something better.

jellybelly

VHT Special 6 numerous times. Pretty much as loud as a Princeton which is pretty much loud enough if you’re going to be mic’d up. 

koneguitarist

6w fender vibrochamp, mic'd up, plus last year I used a 5w teed champ replica, had a wicked tone mic'd up. 

Cirrus

Vox pathfinder 15r at an outdoor gig. It was... too quiet.

AlexHunter

An iPad Air with AmpliTube and the £2.50 SLO model, running directly into the PA obviously.....

skullfunkerry

Orange Dark Terror was my gigging amp for years, never found a venue I couldn't fill with it

digitalscream

darthed1981 said:

Ahh, very interesting point, makes sense.

So would you trust say a 15w valve amp to always do a small venue, or do you need to always have something bigger?

I've always found that bigger amps are needed for small venues...at least, for the kinds of places that we play. In smaller pubs, backline-only and the PA is just for vocals and kick, so the amp has to fill the place. That's when I've always used a minimum of 20W valve, preferably 50W valve.

In bigger, "proper" venues the house PA is usually easily capable of handling all duties, so a smaller amp is just fine because it's got a mic in front of it and the PA's doing the hard work. If I've had a choice, it's always been 20W valve there (or direct to PA with the Helix).

darthed1981

So I'll probably never become a proper gigging musician, but I've always sort of wanted an AC30.

Would it be fair to say an AC30 would do for any venue?

TimmyO

Marshall MS-2 (albeit mic'd)